Private Tales Engineering the Allirian Dream

[Mai'Traya]

Strange place, the surface-world.

The sun was an enormous deadly ball in the sky that cooked things alive - and yet the Drow were the weird ones for staying away from it? Preposterous!

There was even tales that some of the races on the surface enjoyed taking off all of their clothes and laying themselves flat on a bench to allow the sun unrestricted access to assault their skin. They wanted the sun to irritate their skin to the point that their skin reacted to the damage. Apparently they enjoyed the way it looked when their exterior was covered in hardened, deadened, skin.

And the Drow were the strange ones?

The very thought of it made her scoff, even as she adjusted the overly large hat she was currently wearing. Through extensive testing, the "super wide brimmed hat" was something she had picked up to shield her sensitive eyes and skin from the deadly invisible attacks of the sun! The rim was wide enough that it covered her entire face in shadow that meant she was perfectly protected - and the shade of blue was very pleasing as well.

A shade of blue that made her think of cooling thoughts.

Still, waiting in the outer courtyard, surrounded by a trio of guards from Alliria, Mai'Traya sighed heavily in an upward manner.

The rim of her hat fluttered and the guards all looked uncomfortable as they waited for their fourth member - the one who had run off to offer her services to their Lord Commander.

Explaining that she was here as an engineer had taken twice as long as it had taken for them to understand she wasn't here as a courtesan. Actually, for science...

"I cannot help but wonder - would this wait have been lessened had I been soliciting in the traditional form rather than offering my services as an inventor?"
​

Afanas

 

[Afanas]

Mai'Traya

The guard returned. Afanas came after him, though "trailing" would be the wrong word, he moved the way certain silences move into a room, the kind that make conversations falter and die of natural causes.

A gesture. The guard stepped aside. These things happened in sequence, cause and effect, as reliable as gravity and considerably less negotiable.

And there he stood before Mai'Traya.

Seven feet of him, more, actually. The sort of height that suggests the universe had simply forgotten to tell him when to stop. His cloak hung from his shoulders the way night hangs from the edge of the world, inevitable, patient, making no particular effort to be ominous and therefore succeeding absolutely. His hat was wide-brimmed, and it occurred to no one present that two people in this courtyard were now dressed against the same sun for what were almost certainly very different reasons.

He removed the hat. Pressed it to his chest.

Beneath it was a face that had all the correct features in all the correct places, which somehow made it worse. The angles were precise, the symmetry flawless, the skin the particular white of bleached bone. Beauty, certainly, the kind of beauty that makes the observer feel they've walked into a room they weren't quite meant to enter. Alien beauty. Uncanny beauty. It practically screamed 'This guy couldn't possibly be human'

"You must excuse my tardiness, miss Mai'Traya. Paperwork kept me occupied for longer than I expected it would."

He surveyed the four guards. His gaze touched each man once, briefly, the way a clerk ticks names off a manifest.

He nodded.

"You may take your leave now. I've much to discuss with our... guest."

They left. They left with the particular swiftness of men who have been handed an excuse they didn't dare ask for. Not one among them could have defined "engineer" with any confidence, and all four had independently calculated that remaining would mean nodding along to words they didn't understand until their skulls ached. The gratitude they felt was enormous and entirely unspoken.

Afanas smiled.

His gums were the black of tar, of deep wells, of the gap between stars, and they had the same faint shine as would be had by latex...if it was polished and coated in a thin film of neutral oil. The teeth that grew from them were very white and very many. The canines curved inward like the points of most unwholesome insults: four of them, two up and two down, each long as a small knife.

It was, in its way, a welcoming expression. One simply had to accept a rather broad definition of welcome.

"It is a pleasure making your acquaintance. I'm Lord Commander Afanas, son of Vlakhos. I'm the man in charge of Alliria's armed forces, and I believe your particular skills could play a valuable role in bettering our beloved city."